I was raised a huge Notre Dame fan. To give you a little perspective when my grandfather was a kid, his mom used to turn the ND football game on the radio, then head back to her room and pray the rosary for the entire game. If the Irish lost, then she would turn the statue of the Virgin Mary to face the corner of the room. This was her penance for the Irish loss. This is the kind of environment I was raised under. Indeed, quite fanatical, but I felt the background of my Irish loyalties be spelled out.

My problem is that the 2006 Notre Dame football team has been hyped up to be a scoring machine, Charlie's offense rivaling the likes of Bill Walsh's West Coast offense, and of course Brady Quinn, the shoe-in for the Heisman Trophy winner. This worries me. With expectations of a National Championship this year, anything else would be a let down. So, as much as it kills me to say this: Notre Dame is going to have a let down season.

I would love to buy into the hype but the facts don't seem to support this feel good story, or the feeling in my gut. Notre Dame was thought to have one of the toughest schedules in '05, and it turned out they only beat two teams with a winning record- and one was Navy. They got beat by a streaky Michigan St. team, and looked inferior to Ohio St. in the Fiesta Bowl. The ND defense had problems with Stanford, USC, Ohio St, and even Tennessee. This year they will be tested early with a grueling September including G-Tech, Penn St., Michigan, Michigan St. and Purdue. Not to mention they have UCLA and USC later on down the road. This is not the same schedule as last year.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love Brady Quinn, Charlie Weis and all of the other notables that we have this year but the hype scares me. Kind of like year two of the Tyrone Willingham project. I must realize the facts that the media knows Notre Dame will sell magazines and viewerships. And don't even get me started on Jimmy Claussen and his predictions of four straight national championships. I will be rooting for the Irish with everything I have this year, but I would be happy to win a BCS bowl this year. Go Irish!